Those with long memories might recall a posting I wrote a few years back about a number of British artists who were working back then , none of whom I had ever heard of before and who are now completely forgotten. This book will hopefully redress that balance.

What is clear from leafing through the 1500 or so illustrations in the book is that Britain had its own group of great commercial artists who could absolutely match the Americans for inventiveness and mastery of their craft though up ‘til now they have had no record of that work and no recognition.

The leading British artists included Walter Wyles, John Heseltine, Eric Easrnshaw, Michael Johnson , Brian Sanders, Stanley Coleman, Frank Hasseler Ron Atkinson, Cecil Vieweg and Gerry Fancett. Google them and in most cases all you’ll find are links to TI, such is the extent to which they have disappeared from the publics consciousness.

Anyone who has looked into the last great flowering of American Illustration, those great magazine illustrators of the Cooper and Fredman Chaite studios will find the same lament; everything was going great until around 1960, 1964 or 1965 ( accounts differ) when everything just stopped. But not in Britain.

For once we can all be grateful that the UK lagged behind America and while Photography and television gradually eroded away the market for illustrated fiction, it was still an integral part of most British magazines until well into the 70s.

The best of the Brits were very much the equal of anything coming out of the US and were able to experiment with highly creative compositions, inventive uses of colour and paint ( typically the wonderfully smeary/gloopy luiquitex) and some plain old beautiful drawing. For those wondering “what if” the golden era of US illustration had lasted another decade...